


Stage Fright

by Nenalata



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dinner dates, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Kissing in the Rain, Mutual Pining, Operas, Pining, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon, Wingmen Opera Cast, surprisingly few spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:07:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26126239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: Sylvain shows up to every single one of Dorothea’s performances, rain or shine.The same second-story private booth. The same pose, elbows resting on the plush velvet rail, the same hands tucked under his chin like they’re trading gossip over tea in school. The same piercing gaze fixed on every one of her choreographed movements. The same loud applause and cheers. The same wink as he makes the same request: “Congratulatory dinner? Same place? Same time?”Dorothea wonders how much of it all is real.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dorothea Arnault/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	Stage Fright

**Author's Note:**

> A story for [@dulcetgossamir](https://twitter.com/dulcetgossamir) who asked me for more DoroVain mutual pining, which is like...my FAVORITE flavor of DoroVain. This ship just begs for it and I really, really like writing for the two of 'em in general, so that plus the trope... Well. I was only too happy to oblige. I hope you all enjoy it, too!

It rains often in the Adrestian Empire, especially during Enbarr’s hot humid summers. Marketgoers and vendors alike plan for the skies to open up and descend upon stalls with a vengeance not seen since the days of Saint Seiros’s miracles: the lucky sellers set up shop either in buildings or under roofs, the unlucky ones have oilskin tarps to roll down and roll up as needed, and no citizen of caliber ever goes outside without some sort of protective garment. 

Those on the streets have few protective garments and fewer oilskin tarps, but Enbarr still has buildings pressed tightly together and roofs to cover the spaces between. And sometimes, as Dorothea knows well, that’s enough.

The Mittelfrank Opera also plans for rainy days: for all their tarps and covers and roofs, lines of eager theatregoers trailing outside the protection into the elements are inevitable when the right singers are onstage. As a result, they try their best not to schedule the popular Dorothea Arnault for performances during the weeks it seems likely to pour. Weather magic can be unpredictable at best, and no one in Enbarr, least of all its profitable theatre district, wants to perform those experiments on its clientele. Theatregoers are a fickle bunch, just as likely to order bouquets of roses on a whim as they are to storm out from an unsatisfactory performance like the roaring wind and waves from the nearby sea.

But Sylvain shows up to every single one of Dorothea’s performances, rain or shine.

The same second-story private booth.

The same pose, elbows resting on the plush velvet rail, the same hands tucked under his chin like they’re trading gossip over tea in school ( _the same hands that somehow knew just how to untie the laces of her dress; the same hands that knew how to grip a spear_ ).

The same piercing gaze fixed on every one of her choreographed movements ( _the same gaze that she could feel staring at her hips as she left his room; the same gaze that could find her on a battlefield no matter how many enemies surrounded her_ ).

The same loud applause and cheers when she finishes singing the same songs at the same performances of the same plays ( _the same cheerful laugh for the same jokes the same types of girls would stumble through as they tried their same flirtations on the same unattainable boy; the same battle cry over the stomping of his horse’s hooves; the same whoops of victory for each splatter of a different foe’s blood on his armor_.)

The same knock on her dressing room door. The same wink as he makes the same request: “Congratulatory dinner? Same place? Same time?”

Dorothea wonders how much of it all is real. 

* * *

Sylvain, Dorothea knows, has no reason to be in Enbarr as frequently as he is. It’s halfway across the world—or at least half the continent—from his home in freezing Gautier. He has his war with Sreng to worry about, as much as he insists they’re calling them ‘peace treaties’ now. “Emperor Edelgard trusts me on this,” he protests when she criticizes — _nags_ , he’d complained— “Why can’t you?”

A smile and a wink let her know he’s not _really_ accusing her of disloyalty as his friend, but Dorothea’s abashed all the same. Any typical reply taunting him about his history of _trustworthiness_ dries up on her tongue. “Still,” she frowns, “it’s not like you don’t support the opera in other ways. I do see our patron list, you know. And the _monthly_ patrons stick out more than the _annual_ ones.”

Sylvain’s eyes widen, but only for a moment before they relax back to their usual bright apathy. “Well, look at you,” he croons. “Aren’t _you_ well-informed?”

Well. That’s…not a response she’d been expecting. Nor in that tone. “It’s not exactly like the owner wants to hide it from us.”

“Never wants to hide it from you, you mean.” Another smile and another wink, and this time, they’re both from his face gone before Dorothea can even figure out if she’s supposed to feel embarrassed again. He stretches dramatically enough she knows that trail of the conversation is over. “But yeah, I like supporting your hard work when I can’t make it down here for a good show! What’s wrong with that?”

 _Because you ‘make it down here’ far too often than your responsibilities merit_ , Dorothea thinks, but keeps silent. Whatever, really— Sylvain’s made plenty of stupid decisions in his life, chasing pleasure instead of responsibility, and Enbarr’s many activities worth _making it down for a_ _good show_ versus boring political things he hates doing anyway is just another of those stupid decisions.

“Well, then I won’t complain about the ways you choose to waste the Gautier fortune,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

“It’s so great to see you too, Dor!” Sylvain slings his arm around her now-bare shoulder. She lets him guide her down the street towards their usual restaurant and only shrugs him off when they approach its elegantly wrought iron gate. He opens it for her with a flourish.

“It _is_ good to see you,” she admits softly, sweeping herself inside and greeting the host. They’re both guided to the same table indoors, the one tucked into the corner behind a screen. They sit in the same chairs: his allowing him to slouch against the stained-glass window, hers allowing privacy with her back to the rest of the restaurant and her face hidden by the screen. The host lights the candle and leaves them to their… joint dining experience. The solitary one, just the two of them, as always, and he will pay as always, the same as always.

And then he does something different.

Sylvain slides his hand across the table and around the candle, and without thinking, Dorothea slides hers forward. He rests his hand on top and gives her a light squeeze.

Dorothea’s heartbeat quickens. She’s glad he can’t feel her pulse pounding beneath her wrist, just the slenderness of her fingers and the ridges of her knuckles.

She can feel every callus and scar on his palm.

“If you finally married me,” Sylvain murmurs, “then you could see me every day.”

 _The same as always_.

Dorothea’s hand relaxes until she can snatch it back. “You just want a private concert you can stop paying for,” she sniffs, pretending to peruse the menu even though they—Dorothea, Sylvain, and the entire kitchen staff—have long since memorized their orders.

“Eh, Mittelfrank’s worth every coin,” Sylvain shrugs, making a great show of dragging his hand back, too. “I’ll probably be a patron ‘til I die.”

“If you came to more performances, and not just the ones starring me, you’d get more of your money’s worth.”

Sylvain’s smile is brilliant in the candlelight. “Didn’t you just scold me for visiting too often?”

Dorothea does not deign that with a response. Because he is insufferable, and _not_ because she has no clever retort.

* * *

“He’s very handsome, your lover,” the Mittelfrank hairdresser remarks from over this show’s romantic lead’s head. Flawless curls artfully arranged to seem accidental, like they keep getting blown through a beach breeze or tangled in a lovers’ fingers.

“You don’t need to fish for compliments,” Dorothea laughs. “You make him look _almost_ desirable each time. It’s almost magical.” She expects her romantic lead to show off some descriptive and crude tangles of his own fingers or at least stick out his tongue, but for some reason, baffled silence fills the makeup room. “Was that too much? I was just teasing—”

“Oh, by the—if she’s not just being dense, sounds like you have a chance,” her co-star says to their hairdresser, twisting around in his chair to speak to _her_ , not _Dorothea_. As if she’s not even there. The hairdresser just tuts at him for moving while she curls his hair, and the subject drops.

For now. But Dorothea’s interest has been piqued, and not one member of the cast or crew seems interested in satisfying it. She waits her turn until the hairdresser moves on to prepare her hair too. “So, we’ve got a bit of a crush, do we?” she asks sweetly, and the hairdresser’s comb slips, tugging hard enough to make Dorothea yelp.

“Apologies, Dorothea! Goodness! You startled me is all.” Dorothea can see her deep blush in the mirror even as the woman recommences combing. “Well, it’s not much of a crush,” she huffs. “Your _stage lover_ ,” she calls over to the romantic lead, who now _does_ stick out his tongue mid-makeup application, “just made for a handy practice mannequin is all, and his wealthy patrons decided it looked good enough for every show, didn’t they? Anyway,” she muses, draping Dorothea’s hair over her shoulders and dabbing the ends with cream, “he’s got a good head of hair, that boy of yours. Good inspiration.”

“He’s not _my_ boy,” Dorothea’s mouth supplies on instinct even as her eyes follow her romantic lead’s movements. Yes, now that the hairdresser mentions it, that carefully-careless mop of curls _does_ look exactly the way Sylvain’s hair looks after he’s gone through his meticulous, agonizingly-slow daily dressing ritual…

No, that’s not the appropriate thought. The _correct_ thought is how Dorothea, she now internally kicks herself, had understood which ‘boy’ the hairdresser had been speaking of right away.

“Of course not,” the hairdresser says breezily. Before Dorothea can repeat her earlier sentiment, the woman’s beckoning over the makeup artist and Dorothea finds her mouth otherwise occupied. Colored paint cakes each line of her lips, and she has to keep them sealed shut for it to dry.

Shortly before the theatregoers must be filing into their seats outside, Dorothea inspects her reflection in the mirror. The makeup must be dramatic to the point of comical up close: few patrons can afford to sit near the orchestra, and the rest of the audience has to see the cast’s facial expressions from a distance. Black lines swipe the corners of her eyelids and rim her eyes like they’ve been slashed into her skin by daggers. Blush burns her cheeks, a sickly red like the old sheep’s blood the cast uses during fight scenes. And her overpainted lips…

Dorothea turns away from the mirror and continues warming up with scales and melodies with nonsensical, mouth-moving lyrics.

Dorothea has to be fake on stage. The crowd enjoys it. _Dorothea_ enjoys it.

Dorothea’s fake offstage. Her patrons enjoy it. She wonders if Sylvain enjoys it, too.

She wonders if Sylvain can tell.

She wonders how fake he is under his carefully made-up mask.

She wonders if she enjoys it, too.

* * *

“Beautiful as ever, Dor,” Sylvain says in lieu of greeting. He bursts into her dressing room as if he owns the place. Given how much coin he tosses the opera each month, however, he might as well.

“Thank you,” she says to his reflection in her mirror while she unhooks her plaster earrings. A bouquet of fresh flowers materializes on her dressing table; Dorothea blinks at it like it had come from nowhere and not Sylvain’s gloved, retreating hand. “Oh. Thank you again. They’re really beautiful.”

They are. Delicate, bright blue petals, tightly packed over each other. Their stems have been tied together with an expensive-looking silvery ribbon. When she runs her pointer finger over it, the soft satin almost gleams like real metal.

Dorothea looks up to study Sylvain’s face, breath nearly catching at the soft expression she finds there. “I know blue’s not really your usual color, but… they’re forget-me-nots,” he says, and something about that same soft way he says it makes that caught breath _hurt_.

“Well! Doesn’t that sound dramatic?” she forces a laugh. Sylvain does, too.

“That’s me for you! But nah, don’t worry. I just don’t want you to forget about your number one fan while I’m away, you know?”

She doesn’t want to touch the bouquet anymore. “Away?” she repeats dumbly.

“Yeah. Finally signing a peace treaty. A short one, but hey, progress is progress, right?”

“Sure is. Progress is progress.”

Tonight’s performance had been quite the cacophonous one. Lots of cymbals, constant vibrato, horns blaring straight up to the ceiling, back-and-forth duets between Dorothea and this show’s combative love interest. Just the memory makes the silence in this small room grate on her ears.

Sylvain’s still looking at her, like he’s expecting something. He’s wrapped his cloak tightly around his shoulders, and Dorothea has the feeling the cloud-thick sky plans on making his journey back to Gautier and then Sreng a difficult one. She gets to her feet, to… what? To hug him?

Hugging him is what she winds up doing. She presses her face into his chest, because it’s the closest part of him she can reach without tilting her head… up, and why would she do that? Sylvain’s heart beats hard against her cheek even through his thick cloak. When he swallows, she feels it too. Her arms feel useless wrapped around his broad shoulders, so she stretches her arms up, lacing her fingers together around his neck. “I’ll…miss you, I suppose. Mittelfrank will, too.”

Sylvain immediately grips her hips, drawing her closer. He buries his face in the slope of her neck, just below her jaw and between the sharp jut of her chin and the soft, sensitive spot under her ear. His words against her skin feel more like kisses than whispers as he says, “Nah, you’ll be fine.”

And then he pulls away with a grin, leaving her arms lingering around nothing but empty air. “I’ll take you someplace expensive when I get back,” Sylvain promises, walking backwards through her door and offering her a cheery salute. “As an apology.”

“I hope you’re footing the bill,” she reminds him instead of saying goodbye. Sylvain winks.

“Hey, Gautier treasury’s gotta be used for _something_ , right?”

“Something better than war,” Dorothea agrees, but the door has already swung shut.

* * *

Dorothea can’t care less about Sylvain’s Crest, and she’s always wished he’d stop joking about it. They’re friends. She’s his _friend_ , she’s said more times than she’d like to remember. She doesn’t care about what his family says, because she doesn’t know them—nor does she care to, based off the little she knows. She doesn’t care about Sreng, because she’s spilled enough blood to know bodies fall the same whether it’s a Relic who’s finished them off or not. She doesn’t care about his _Crest_ , because it’s just another one of the stupid things girls giggle about when he struts by.

Dorothea’s friends with Sylvain, not friends with his Crest, and that’s why it’s so much worse that she’s gone and fallen in love with him.

Because for all that he’s witty, and _handsome_ , and supports everything she puts her mind to, and _beautiful_ , and smart, and _attentive even as a one-time lover_ , and strong, and _everything she knows she loves but doesn’t deserve_ …

Sylvain’s been bred to be witty and handsome and a patron of the arts and beautiful and smart and good in bed and strong because he’s rich. And he’s rich because he has a Crest.

And Dorothea, in the prime of what she sees as her fading youth, has neither Crest nor riches. She can offer someone with a family like his, someone like _him_ , absolutely nothing in exchange for his love.

* * *

“Haven’t seen that boy of yours in a while,” her hairdresser remarks while tidying up her brushes. Dorothea stills, but the same actor from last time, her ‘lover,’ rescues her suspicious pause by scoffing.

“Hoping to sweep in for the kill?” he mocks her, and the hairdresser swats his perfect coiffure with a bottle of detangling lotion.

“I was asking Doro here, not you! You’re getting by okay, sweetie?” This she directs at Dorothea, who plasters a sparkling smile on her face.

“Of course! He’s busy with… work. He’ll be gone until the new moon. At least, I hope so.”

A speedy return from a peace treaty meeting does not bode well for a peace treaty having been written at all, Dorothea knows.

Still, her peers misunderstand. “You sure?” her fellow lead asks, more gently this time. He leans forward in his chair, much to the hairdresser’s annoyance. “I saw the flowers last week in your vase. You’ve got a real eye for flower-arranging. Anyone ever tell you that’s attractive in a woman?”

Maybe past-Dorothea would have been intrigued by this supposed fact on the art of seduction. Present-Dorothea just feels nauseated. “I said you’re passably attractive _onstage_ , not _off_ ,” she replies coolly.

Her co-star raises his hand in surrender. “Worth a shot, right? I just thought I’d mention it since they were forget-me-nots. Blue’s not really your color, no offense, and even the name of the flower is—”

Their hairdresser hums sympathetically. “Oh, Dorothea! Did you break that poor boy’s heart?”

A girl? Break _Sylvain_ ’s heart?

A hysterical laugh bursts from her throat before she can help it. “ _Me_? Absolutely not!” Dorothea almost wipes a strange little tear from the corner of her eye before she remembers it would ruin her makeup. She blinks it back instead.

“Hm,” the makeup artist says, and Dorothea’s sure she’s about to receive a lecture, but the man just packs up his kit and leaves, shaking his head as he goes.

“You three are awfully invested,” Dorothea says when the other two just sigh. “Are you hoping he’ll be your next muse?”

“No, you and your patrons got that covered for all of us,” her co-star says, and if she hadn’t just finished getting ready for the stage, she’d invite him to practice a little extra _combat choreography_ in an alleyway. “But every time he shows up, he’s the one really stealing the show, you know?”

“Stealing all this one’s pretty young things, more like,” the hairdresser clarifies with another swat to the romantic lead’s head. He only shrugs.

“Call it what you will.”

“For your information,” Dorothea says smoothly, “he’s my friend. A very old friend since our school days.”

“Ooh!” the hairdresser squeals. She hugs her brush to her ample chest. “I do love a romance between childhood friends! And from ‘school days,’ no less!”

He’d been nineteen. She’d been eighteen.

They had just started school and already were bored, lonely and full of self-hatred.

She’d invited him to dinner, because he’d been whining all day about not having a date for the night, and because a Dagdan restaurant way out of her price range was having its grand opening that day. But they’d wound up at a tiny food cart instead that sold the same food for a fraction of the cost, and Sylvain had been excited to sample ‘fine cuisine that _really_ knows seasoning.’ He hadn’t even been sarcastic. So of course Dorothea had let her guard down and forgotten how to be ‘proper’ in front of a noble, how to seem desirable to one of the most eligible, richest bachelors in the whole school, if not the entire Holy Kingdom.

Sylvain’s laugh had grown dark as velvet when she yanked a spiced meatball off its skewer and practically swallowed it whole. “You suck balls like that?” he’d asked, and Dorothea didn’t slap him because his lower lip was smeared with some smoky-brown sauce that he clearly hadn’t noticed and she _still_ had forgotten who and what he was.

So she’d gestured to the juice on his mouth instead and asked sweetly, “You eat pussy all messy like that?”

Sylvain’s eyes had gone huge as the meatballs she’d kept eating before he barked a laugh that echoed in the marketplace. “Only if it’s _really_ good,” he’d admitted, more conversational than seductive. “But it sounds like you know what you’re talking about. Give me some pointers, would you?” He’d tugged an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his mouth while she giggled and talked about sexual things she _actually_ liked, the types of people she liked, pleased to learn how much they had in common even when the subject turned from sex to songs to tea and how maybe they should grab some just to wash the heat from their tongues.

On their walk back, Sylvain had tossed his expensive handkerchief into a waste bin and hadn’t looked back. And Dorothea, too late, realized no— no, they had nothing in common at all.

Now, she clears her throat and tries to correct her hairdresser. “We tried… you know, tried it just once, but the timing was wrong.” _There was a war_. “Friendship has always been most comfortable for h— us.” _I bet you hate women, don’t you, Sylvain?_ “We’re not right for each other anyway.” _Dorothea’s riches lay in her youth and her beauty, and both would dwindle with time. Sylvain’s riches were all that and more, and his would only grow._

Neither of the remaining people backstage seem impressed with her declaration. “Well, good luck telling _him_ that,” her co-star says, and a whistle from the director reminds them to take their places.

* * *

Her performance is terrible tonight. Dorothea just knows it. Her voice sounds thin to her own ears. She stumbles over her lyrics more often than she sings them. She relies too heavily on cues and less on her character.

Backstage during the second intermission, Dorothea pinches the bridge of her nose while her director yells at her as quietly as the wings would allow them.

It was her fellow Mittelfrank members that were to blame for dredging up old memories. Not of school: of what came _after_. Of the blood and bodies, the guilt and the righteousness, the one night together when they’d tried to cope in the only way people like the two of them had known how…

Performing for Enbarr’s elite, even as Emperor Edie tried her best to wrangle the nobility into something better and stronger…

All they do is remind her of the way she’s doomed to fail on the fateful day she’d take her last bow. In the end, nobles will be nobles and commoners will be commoners. And these nobles are _terrified_ of joining those ‘lesser’ ranks. They see the people hiding under roofs while they hurry past under oilskins. They see the beggars waiting for produce scraps while they inspect jewelry just the stall over. While the rain falls on every citizen of Enbarr, some citizens are better prepared than most. But those same citizens are terrified of their preparations meaning nothing.

It’s almost ironic now that the war is over. More than ever, Crest-hunting bachelorettes prowl the market streets and canals.

Nights like this, when even the high ceilings of the opera house can’t completely muffle the tap-tap-tap of a coastal storm, the audience feels harder to please. They’ve come to the opera for an escape from their daily fears. They’d rather watch beautiful people sing, love, and die onstage than think about their futures. Dorothea understands, more than her most ardent fans could possibly know, but the difference is Dorothea isn’t allowed to watch, just act in every sense of the word. She sings. She loves. She dies. And she has to think about her future with every note, heartbeat, and fear.

“I’ll get it together for the finale,” Dorothea now promises her director. “You know it’s just one of those… difficult nights.”

His mustache twitches. “Not just for you and your _feelings_ , Arnault. Those walking coin purses are getting restless out there. I want them shaking open on my desk, not walking out my doors just as fat as they came in!” Her director squints, making a great show of eyeing her up and down, lingering on her hips, breasts, eyes, and mouth. “You’re not getting any younger. Those coin purses don’t spill open for your beautiful and stunning _personality_.”

When the curtain opens once again, Dorothea sings her heart out. If her voice warbles in fear, not vibrato, no one notices. She sings for them, she loves her annoying co-star for them, and when she dies on stage, it’s all for them, too. The audience roars its triumph.

Somehow, through that greedy din, Dorothea hears another voice gleefully shouting her name, too.

* * *

“What are you doing here?”

Sylvain blinks, trapped in her dressing room doorway. “Why are you still dressed?”

He doesn’t sound sensual in the slightest, just curious, but underneath her blush, heat surges to Dorothea’s cheeks all the same.

“Sylvain,” she hisses. “You should be in Sreng!”

Sylvain coughs an ugly noise in the back of his throat, a sound for which Dorothea cannot assign an emotion. “I’ll pass, thanks, given I _finally_ got a peace treaty out of them.” Dorothea stares. Sylvain stares back. Slowly, the skin by the corners of his eyes crinkle, a slanted grin growing on his lips. He leans forward, like he’ll—he’ll poke her just above her chest, which he does, saying, “ _You_ thought I was gone. Like ‘left the city’ gone.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Dorothea sneers on impulse, too distracted by the way his finger hasn’t moved from her bodice. It doesn’t matter anyway: he pokes her again.

“You’re right, you’re right. You thought—” that finger trails up and up until his nail grazes her neck, stopping to lift her chin so she can’t look anywhere but his cruel brown eyes, “—I’d left the whole _country_.”

He’s not wearing gloves, Dorothea realizes. The thickest callus on his finger drags against her skin, turning her face side to side so he can inspect whatever expression is painted all over her face right now.

 _Painted_.

“I need to wash off my makeup,” Dorothea says thickly, and she thanks a Goddess she doesn’t believe in when Sylvain releases her. The makeup artist had, as always, left a small basin on her dressing room table for her, and it’s as good an excuse as any to turn her back on him. She can feel his eyes burning into her with each splash of cold water.

“Why are you still dressed?” Sylvain asks again. Dorothea squeezes her eyes shut and almost slaps her face with the aggressiveness of her next splash. She hears him settle against the wall and hates him, hates that she knows precisely what pose he’s striking even when he thinks no one is watching. “We can’t really go on a date before the market’s dinner rush if you’re still in costume. You’ll be mobbed by admirers.”

 _Date_. Dorothea chokes on clouded water. Sylvain’s behind her in an instant, hand clapping her bare back kind of…uselessly if she really had started choking. She spits out the eerily pink water and shoos him off. But that’s worse somehow, because she must be imagining his fingers’ reluctance, his palm smoothing back her heavy braid, his nails’ sudden fascination with the buttons on her dress. She’s just like all the other girls, really, wanting his touch and pretending he wants it, too.

“Everything okay?”

Dorothea manages to nod.

“Okay. Well, to finish explaining myself before you got all embarrassed—”

“I wasn’t _embarrassed_ —”

Sylvain sighs behind her. It tickles the ends of her hair. “Got it, Thea. Anyway, the peace treaty was signed here in Enbarr. Emperor Edelgard had to sign it too, approve the terms, all that stuff.” He pauses. Dorothea’s face is clean and damp now, but the muddy water in the basin is much more fascinating than checking the mirror to see if the heat she feels buzzing above her shoulder blade really is Sylvain’s uncertain hand hovering over her skin. Another sigh, the heat’s gone, and Sylvain continues: “But man, you can imagine how glad I was it all ended today in time for your show! I haven’t missed a single one since…”

“Since the war ended,” Dorothea finishes for him when he trails off. She dries her hands and face on a fresh towel. “Yes. You haven’t. It’s… It’s really nice of you, Sylvain.”

He watches her unhook her jewelry piece by piece, as he always does after a show, except this time he’s quiet. “I’m pretty selfish, actually,” Sylvain finally says when she moves behind her dressing screen. His voice deepens in a way she hates how much she loves to hear. “I’m not really a _nice_ sort of guy.”

Dorothea’s fingers freeze on her buttons. She knows the rustle and snap of her dress and its sudden silence is painfully audible in such a small room, but she can’t seem to get herself moving again.

“Anyway,” Sylvain half-laughs, and Dorothea peeks her head out from a corner of the screen.

“Well, at least you’re nice to me,” she says without enough bite. She ducks behind the screen again to finish getting undressed. This post-performance routine is familiar to the two of them. The privacy screen was even a gift from the only non-jealous patron she’s ever had who had seen a bored-looking Sylvain waiting for her outside one too many times. But she’s never felt so aware of her own naked body before, of the warm evening air prickling every inch of skin available to it, of knowing that same air ruffles the curls on the nape of Sylvain’s neck, that it breezes past his lips, that he breathes it in—

Dorothea throws on her plain dress with an urgency that terrifies her. And the intensity in Sylvain’s gaze when she steps out from her hiding place terrifies her even more, because she’s sure it’s reflected in her eyes, too. She doesn’t see the expensive fabric of his cloak, just the way its cut emphasizes the broadness of his chest and shoulders. She doesn’t see the heavy coin purse weighing down his belt at a stupidly easy location for a pickpocket to snatch, just the thick muscle of his thighs leading up to the slimness of his waist. She doesn’t see the Crest in his blood, not even if she’d wanted to.

She just sees Sylvain, and she loves everything in sight.

“Marry me,” he says, that same urgency and intensity and something else in his voice, and Dorothea can’t think of anything else to do but laugh.

“At least buy me dinner first,” she gasps through the hysterics. “You promised me someplace expensive, remember?”

Immediately, the air clears, and Dorothea wishes she’d said nothing at all. Sylvain laughs too, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s cringing at his own convincing display of passion. It’s fake and they both know it and Dorothea’s relieved to find she doesn’t care.

* * *

“We’re not going to the canal?” Dorothea asks as Sylvain weaves through Enbarr’s narrow streets. She tucks herself tighter into her cloak. It may be summer, but the nighttime can still get cold outdoors. As if he’s noticed, Sylvain tosses the edge of his own cloak over her shoulder, his hand resting there with the motion.

He’s always so casual about little gestures like this. Unaffected. Dorothea wishes she remembered how to feign the revulsion from her school days, or remembered if it was ever revulsion at all. “I said the _market_ dinner rush, right?”

At this hour, not much will be open save orphans’ hungry mouths. “I don’t think someone of your class knows what ‘dinner rush’ means down here,” she says, making no attempt to hide the bitterness in her words. Sylvain frowns, but it’s a thoughtful expression.

“Well, you said you wanted something expensive,” he says, leaning close and whispering like it’s a secret. “So I figured we’d just… make a dinner rush instead. Although that’s probably not the right phrase.”

“You? Concerned about phrasing?” Dorothea starts to scoff, but they round the corner and what she sees snatches the words from her mouth.

The market’s abuzz, even at this hour. People line up at every possible vendor like they’re saving seats for top-tier opera tickets. But it’s only the food carts and produce stalls and soup sellers whose tarps are rolled up and advertising business. Business, except no gold is exchanging hands. Business, except not a single customer here looks like they could possibly have gold in their hands at all.

“You’re always telling me I’m wasting money on you,” Sylvain shrugs, his arm still wrapped tight around her shoulder. “But it was war I kept wasting money on, never _you_. So now that we’ve got the peace treaty all signed, I figure I might as well take that war money and… I don’t know. Find something to do in Enbarr when you’re not singing, I guess.”

Dorothea has no reply. How can she have one? Five girls, the same age she was when she first started singing by the fountain, laugh over steaming bowls of rice and seared meat. Their grubby legs dangle over the edge of some stranger’s stone fence. All around her, vendors hand over small but hearty portions of food to whoever asks. Enough to keep them fed, not enough to hurt them. Not everyone looks happy to serve or about the size of the portions, but given how much gold Dorothea bets is sitting in each cook or farmer’s lockbox right now, she doubts they care.

“Anyway, before you say anything or whatever, this didn’t cost that much,” Sylvain’s speech picks up in pace, “so I guess I lied to you about ‘expensive.’ But that just makes it to keep doing it, either here or somewhere else or both. Figure you’re probably smarter about, I don’t know, what to do than me, so if I fucked something up, I’m all ears! Otherwise, I’m starving, and I can _and will_ drag you to that food cart with the Dagdan—”

Dorothea twirls around in his embrace, because now she _finally_ identifies it as an ‘ _embrace_ ,’ cups his face in her hands, and kisses him. A startled sound comes from behind Sylvain’s lips, and for a bone-chilling, horrible instant Dorothea worries she’s been wrong _all_ these years, but it’s not long before he relaxes and settles his hands on her hips like he did only a week ago. But this time, he kisses her, and she kisses him, hopelessly entangled in their cloaks and hopelessly entangled in each other.

She doesn’t wonder who’s tasted the sunshine and rain from his lips before now, who’s kissed him in the past and tasted nothing but gold. She doesn’t wonder if he fears the eager way her tongue slides against his teeth means greed for his body, not himself. She just slots herself against him, tugs his lips into her mouth one after the other, drinks him in as she’s been wanting to do for _so long_ and have it mean something.

When she pulls back to breathe, Sylvain chases after her. He pulls her earlobe into his mouth with his teeth and sucks, tongue twitching across it until she moans. “Dor,” he says into her ear, rough and dangerous.

Dorothea pants something resembling ‘go ahead.’

Sylvain takes a deep breath, rests his forehead on her shoulder, and in the same delicious tone of voice, says, “I’m _really_ fucking hungry and I’ve been looking forward to tonight _all_ day.”

Heat blasts Dorothea’s cheeks like the worst of Enbarr’s summer days. She opens her mouth to kiss, to say yes, to admit to all the lies she’s told herself and told him, when Sylvain’s stomach grumbles over the raucous clamors of the nighttime marketplace.

“You _cannot_ be serious,” Dorothea gapes. She steps away just enough to jostle him, but still gripping his cloak enough to give him a good, dramatic shake. The quirk of his bitten lips can only be described as a _pout_.

“I’m dead serious when I say I have _never_ forgotten that smoky sauce from the place in the monastery,” Sylvain says flatly, hand on his stomach. “And I’m going to buy you the meat skewer thing too, just so I can get off on the way you tear into it like you don’t care if I’m watching.”

 _I’ve never cared if you’re watching_ , Dorothea wants to tease.

 _Stop wasting your fortune,_ Dorothea wants to scoff.

 _Stop wasting it on me_ , Dorothea wants to insist.

 _I can’t believe I love you_ , Dorothea wants to groan with her hand to her face.

“I love you,” Dorothea says, “but that’s not the same as just wanting you. Actually, forget it—" and Sylvain grabs her hand before she can turn away and hide her face.

The skies open up, and one by one, frantic vendors hoist up covers and tarps to protect them and their prepaid customers from the rain. Sylvain lifts Dorothea’s hood and tucks it around her face, his grin crooked and shy and pleased. “Love you too,” he says, blinking back the raindrops caught in his eyelashes. “Feels right that it’s you.”


End file.
